


cookie dough and boy talk (a remix)

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Series: lucky you’re the one i love [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, some pre-relationship ripper/jenny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 13:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: “Seriously, Dawn, I said stay—”“It’s not safe to stay alone in a car at night!” Dawn objected. “And Mom would be super pissed if she knew you’d just let me—”“Hi, sorry,” said Ripper loudly. “What the fuck?”“Ripper!” said Buffy. “Don’t swear in front of my baby sister!”





	cookie dough and boy talk (a remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackalopingIntoTheVoid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackalopingIntoTheVoid/gifts).



> for jack!! because i'm like 99% sure one of our ripper-au talks sparked this idea, and all of a sudden it just did not let go of my brain. love you, love you, love you, i hope you don't mind me gifting you fics all the time in our 'verse bc it appears That's What's Happening Now.

Patrolling with Buffy was really a trial-and-error sort of thing, with a general emphasis on the _error._ Ripper was well aware that most Watchers had classical training when it came to fighting skills, and that he’d dropped out of the Academy far too early to really know much about strategic, proficient ways to train one’s Slayer, but he did know a thing or two about a good old-fashioned brawl, and so he taught Buffy that instead. The one big problem with this approach, however, was that Ripper’s attacks were all based on the assumption that the person he was throwing down with was bigger than he was, which meant—

“Oops!” said Buffy, watching as the vampire flew across the cemetery and through the wall of a nearby crypt. “Do you think he’s dead?”

There was a pitiful groan from the crypt.

“Guess not,” said Buffy, dusting her hands on her pants. “Ripper, do you know where—”

“Stake,” said Ripper, and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” said Buffy, grinning, and ran towards the rubble that had once been a centuries-old building. The academic in Ripper winced a little at the architecture that had been destroyed, but—there were casualties in war, he supposed. He could complain about the whole thing to Jenny and Willow after patrol; they’d get it.

As a second vampire began to pull itself out of its grave, Ripper turned—and noticed something rather odd. Sitting on a tombstone not three feet away from him was a little kid with long brown hair, happily eating a candy bar and watching the proceedings with a completely unbothered expression.

“Oi, kid!” he called. “Get out of the way!”

“ _You_ get out of the way!” said the kid, and went back to her candy bar.

Wordlessly, Ripper gestured towards the vampire.

“You should probably get that before it eats me,” said the kid helpfully, unfazed. “Or maybe Buffy will. But I think she’s going for the other zombie—”

“Vampire,” corrected Ripper automatically.

“ _Vampires,_ ” said the kid, with the you’re-so-stupid voice that only kids could really pull off, “don’t come out of the _ground._ They live in _caves,_ like bats. I saw it on TV.”

“This is real life, kid,” said Ripper, turning his full attention to the kid and beginning to mentally prepare an explanation of the differences between real-life zombies and vampires. “For one thing—”

The vampire, which had made it all the way out of its grave, tackled Ripper, knocking him to the ground directly in front of the kid. Jostled by the impact of Ripper and the vampire hitting the ground, the kid dropped her candy bar. “BUF-FY!” she shrieked.

To Ripper’s complete surprise, Buffy came _running,_ still covered in vampire dust. “Dawn, I told you to _stay in the car!”_ she snapped, grabbing the kid by her pink jean jacket and yanking her down from the tombstone. As soon as she had pushed the kid out of the fray, she grabbed the vampire and pulled it off of Ripper, who was too busy trying to figure out the whole kid situation to really register that he had probably sprained his wrist. Quickly, she staked it, then turned again to the kid. “Seriously, Dawn, I said _stay—_ ”

“It’s not safe to stay alone in a car at night!” Dawn objected. “And Mom would be _super_ pissed if she knew you’d just _let_ me—”

“Hi, sorry,” said Ripper loudly. “What the fuck?”

 _“Ripper!”_ said Buffy. “Don’t swear in front of my baby sister!”

* * *

 

“You brought Dawn on patrol?” said Jenny reprovingly, pressing the ice pack to Ripper’s wrist. “That seems extremely unsafe, Buffy, why—”

“Mom’s at an art show and we still can’t find a sitter!” Buffy defended herself. “What was I supposed to do, just let Ripper handle the baddies? We know how well _that_ goes.”

“I can hold my own!” Ripper objected, indignant. “And how come _Janna_ knew you had a little sister but I didn’t?”

“Um, I don’t know, you never come to my house?” Buffy rolled her eyes, then went back to picking leaves and twigs out of Dawn’s hair. “ _God,_ Dawn, did you roll around in a tree or something?”

“I’m telling Mom you fight zombies,” said Dawn.

Buffy scoffed. “Like she’d believe it.”

“ _Vampires,”_ said Ripper. “Not zombies, _vampires. How_ is this so hard for her to understand? Vampires drink blood, they can _articulate intelligent thought—_ zombies just shamble about and moan brainlessly. Like Angel.”

Dawn started giggling.

“Shut  _up,_ ” said Buffy, but Ripper could see that she was trying not to laugh.

“Angel’s  _totally_ brainless,” Dawn agreed, grinning at Ripper with a new respect. “He’s the dumbest. He came over for dinner last week and every time Mom asked him a question he would just—look at Buffy like _she_ had the answer. It’s  _his_ life!”

“Mom asked him _where he went to school,”_ said Buffy resignedly to Jenny. “You can see why he’d need me to answer that one.”

“Hmm,” said Jenny, who had begun to carefully bandage Ripper’s wrist. “Rupert, you should pay more attention on patrol.”

“Well, pardon me for not taking into account the _baby sister in the line of fire,”_ said Ripper waspishly. “Next time I’ll make sure to lure her away from the battle with candy bars so she won’t provide _distractions.”_

“It’s a poor workman that blames his Slayer’s baby sister,” said Jenny, grinning. “How’s your wrist?”

“Better,” said Ripper, tried to move it, and swore.

“Okay.” Jenny patted his shoulder, now visibly trying not to laugh. “Buffy, I think I’m gonna have to be going on patrol with you until Ripper’s all healed up.”

“What— _no!”_ said Ripper, horrified. “Janna, you’re _pint-sized!_ They’ll see you and go _straight_ for your neck—”

“Buffy’s tiny,” said Jenny with a shrug. “She does fine.”

“Buffy,” said Ripper, “is the _Vampire Slayer.”_ Too late, he remembered that Dawn was privy to this entire conversation, and winced—but he supposed they’d passed the point of plausible deniability right when Dawn saw Ripper get tackled by a vampire. “You are _not—_ ”

“So?” said Jenny. “I can still throw a punch.”

“How on earth can you—”

Jenny hit him in the face.

Ripper reeled back into the couch, clutching his nose; Buffy and Dawn were _shrieking_ with laughter. He had to try his hardest not to start giggling himself. “Janna, you _can’t—”_

“Element of surprise,” said Jenny, and squared up. “I’m _super_ tiny and I’m not the Slayer, so of _course_ they’re not expecting a punch to the face. They stagger back—”

“—right onto my stake!” Buffy finished, brandishing it for emphasis.

Ripper looked from Jenny to Buffy, and then from Buffy to Jenny, recognizing that he was being a bit unreasonable about Jenny patrolling and not entirely understanding why. Whatever it was, he decided, it was also unfounded, and so he said, “I _suppose_ you have a point, but that still doesn’t solve the babysitting problem.”

“Excuse  _me,_ ” said Dawn, “I am _not_ an infant!”

“Well, if you’re not patrolling, why don’t you keep an eye on Dawn?” suggested Jenny. “It’ll make our patrols safer, and it’ll mean some extra cash for you, right? So now you can stop selling the stuff you steal out of demon lairs when you think I’m not looking.”

“You noticed that?” said Ripper, feeling strangely appreciative of Jenny for it.

“Get a _room,_ ” said Buffy, throwing her balled-up jacket at the both of them. It hit Ripper’s shoulder. “But I’m with Jenny. You watching Dawn would be _super_ helpful,” she had that _terrifying_ wheedling note in her voice, “and you always say that Watchers are here to _help_ their Slayers—”

“Christ,” said Ripper. “Fine.”

“What if I don’t like him?” said Dawn, once again in that Impossible-Little-Kid voice.

“Then  _deal,”_ said Buffy. “Ripper’s the best, so you’d be totally dumb not to.”

Ripper pretended he wasn’t grinning.

* * *

 

Ripper showed up the next day at Buffy’s house, feeling a little weird about it. His dad had always talked about Slayers as girls who had to devote their whole _lives_ to their calling—girls who were taken from their families and raised by Watchers, trained to take on the power and responsibility if it ever fell upon their shoulders. It was rare that a Slayer was called outside the ones the Watchers had found first, and those ones usually barely lasted a month.

It was _incredibly_ rare that a Slayer with a family was called, and certainly not a family as cozy-looking as Buffy and her mum and her little sister. Ripper had seen Buffy’s mum a few times, picking her up from school in a jeep and fussing over her like a...well, like a mum. Ripper didn’t really have much experience with mums, which sort of added to the weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew he wasn’t the sort of person that mums usually liked, if he was going off of the reactions of some of the mums of the people he’d dated in the past.

He hesitated, then rang the doorbell.

Buffy opened it, which alleviated at least _some_ of the tension in his chest. “Hi, Ripper!” she said. “Jenny’s upstairs getting ready for patrol. You wanna, um—” She stepped back, waiting.

“Sure,” said Ripper, and stepped inside, feeling thoroughly out of place in this tidy, well-maintained house. It felt weird, thinking of Buffy living here and having her comfy-cozy American-teenager life. He felt—

“Hi, Rupert,” said Jenny, hurrying down the stairs and cutting off Ripper’s train of thought. Jenny did that whenever she showed up, really, and Ripper didn’t really want to think about what that might mean. “Buffy, where exactly _are_ you telling your mom we’re going?”

“Shopping,” said Buffy. “I’m gonna buy you some cute miniskirts.”

“You two have fun!” said Ms. Summers from behind Buffy. Ripper jumped. “And you must be Rupert,” she added, looking at Ripper in a way that...wasn’t judging, just thoughtful. “Buffy mentioned you. Jenny’s boyfriend?”

“WHAT?” said Jenny.

Buffy stepped on Jenny’s foot. “Yep!” she said. “That’s how I know he’s a good guy. You know Jenny, Mom, she’s got a good head on her shoulders—”

Ripper was finding this situation entirely amusing.

“—they haven’t been dating long enough to call it a _relationship,_ but they _really_ like each other,” Buffy continued merrily, “which is I guess why Jenny’s so surprised, hearing him called her _boyfriend—_ ”

“Okay, we are going _right now,”_ Jenny hissed, grabbing Buffy’s elbow and towing her out the door. Buffy directed a last cheerful wave over her shoulder, looking _supremely_ amused.

Ms. Summers looked a little amused herself. “Well,” she said. “Regardless of your relationship with Jenny, Rupert, it’s nice to meet you. Buffy and Jenny have talked so much about you, I feel like I already know you.”

Ripper blinked. “Really?”

“Oh, yes!” Ms. Summers smiled, a soft, warm smile that made Ripper kind of wish his dad smiled like that. “Buffy thinks very highly of you. I’m sure you know that already—”

“Um, kind of,” said Ripper. Then, more truthfully, “Not really.”

Ms. Summers’s smile now had a bit of a sympathetic tilt. Not a lot of people looked at Ripper like that, and it made him vaguely uncomfortable. “I’ll let Dawn know you’re here,” she said. “I should be back by eleven, but she should be in bed by ten. There’s a more comprehensive list of instructions on the fridge, so…” She trailed off, then said, “It’s a bit of a sister thing, but Buffy and Dawn in the house together almost _always_ leads to an argument, and then they call me at work...I’m hoping that doesn’t happen with you,” she added, a laugh in her voice. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

“Of—of course,” said Ripper awkwardly, blushing a bit. It felt weird to tell Ms. Summers that he was really only doing it for the good of the Vampire Slayer and all mankind, so instead he just said, “Happy to help, if you need it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ms. Summers agreed, and opened the living room door, poking her head in. “Sweetie, Rupert’s here, he’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

“Who’s  _Rupert?”_ said Dawn, squeezing through the door to squint up at both of them. Then, “Ripper, your name is _Rupert?”_

“Be nice, Dawn,” said Ms. Summers reprovingly, but without any bite. Ripper, who wasn’t used to seeing discipline without its humiliating sting, stared at both of them incredulously. “I’ll see you at eleven, Rupert, and I’ll see _you—_ ” she ruffled Dawn’s hair, “—when you wake up for breakfast.”

“Have a good work art gala thingy,” said Dawn, grinning.

With a last wave to Ripper, Ms. Summers headed out the door.

“Your name is _Rupert?”_ said Dawn again.

“Weren’t you there when Janna was calling me Rupert?” said Ripper a little irritably.

“I just thought you two had dumb couple pet names for each other,” said Dawn. “Is Jenny’s name _Janna?”_

“Dumb—” Ripper flushed. “Did Buffy tell _you_ I was dating her?”

“Yep,” said Dawn, popping the P. “Only now I think you just have a big old crush. Which is _super_ smart of you, ‘cause Jenny’s the best. She taught me how to catch bugs in the backyard, and she has a _motorcycle—”_

“Let’s make cookies,” said Ripper, “and _not_ talk about my girlfriend.” He realized his slip, and winced. “My _not-_ girlfriend.”

“But I wanna talk about love stuff!” Dawn protested. “Buffy _never_ talks to me about any of the boys she dates, and Mom says I’m not old enough to date yet, and I _want_ to hear about _somebody’s_ love life if I’m not allowed to have my own!”

“How old are you?” said Ripper. “Five?”

“Have you _ever_ been around a kindergartener?” said Dawn. “I am _nine. Obviously.”_

Ripper considered. Then he said, “Right. Well, you can’t tell your mum these stories, but I _do_ have some experience with boys.”

“Ooooooh,” Dawn sang out, “ _really?”_

Rolling his eyes, Ripper steered Dawn into the living room, sitting her down on the couch. “What d’you want to know?” he asked.

Dawn considered. “Have you kissed any boys?” she asked.

“A few,” said Ripper, trying to sound cool and casual about it.

“How about girls?”

“A handful.”

Dawn considered again. “Which is better?” she asked. “Buffy says both are really good, and Willow says girls are better, and Xander says he doesn’t know, and Jenny says she’s not getting kissed enough lately to be able to tell.” She grinned. “You know, _you_ could do something about that—”

“Leave off Janna or I won’t tell you anything about kissing,” Ripper informed her.

Dawn made a few kissing noises and batted her lashes, but no further comments about Jenny were made. “So?” she said. “Which is better, boys or girls?”

Ripper considered. “For me it depends on _who_ I’m kissing,” he said. “Think it probably will for you too.”

“You’re totally sappy,” said Dawn, giggling. “I’m _so_ telling Buffy how sappy you are.”

“Do that and I will _murder_ you,” said Ripper, which only made Dawn giggle more. God, what _was_ it with this family? “And—look, you don’t know till you know, all right? For me I kissed a girl first, and I liked it well enough—and then I kissed a boy and it was nice.”

“Wow,” said Dawn. “Real romantic poetry here. I almost wanna listen to Buffy talk about Angel.” She shifted closer on the couch. “Tell me about how it feels like to have a _crush,”_ she said. “I think I have one on a boy in my class, but—”

Ripper couldn’t really think of a time when he’d had a _crush._ Generally, the second he had realized he was attracted to someone, he’d just go up and tell them—but that was before the absolute mess that had led him to Sunnydale. And right now, there was only one important crush-worthy person in his life. “You feel all _warm_ around them,” he said hesitantly, comforting himself with the knowledge that Dawn didn’t know for _certain_ who he was talking about. “And they make you laugh more than anyone does—those real laughs, the ones where you almost can’t breathe. And you think about kissing them sometimes, but it makes you a little nervous, so you try and pretend that you don’t want to kiss them at all. But then you just start thinking about them again. ‘S kinda awful, honestly.”

“ _Sounds_ like it,” said Dawn, making a face.

“And you’re a bit young for crushes, anyway,” Ripper added, determined to steer the conversation away from Feelings Territory. “How old are you? Three?”

“ _Nine,”_ said Dawn, who was clearly still at the age where one’s age was _extremely_ important for other people to know. “And I _know,_ but it just always seemed so _dreamy!”_

“Eh,” said Ripper, waving a hand. “Crushes aren’t the end-all-be-all.”

“What about falling in love?”

“Haven’t done that yet,” said Ripper immediately, without even having to think about the answer beforehand.

“Not even with—”

“Say her name and I _will_ stop talking about this, I swear to God, Dawn,” Ripper informed her.

Dawn gave Ripper a large, smug grin, and Ripper was struck with a confusing mixture of annoyance and fondness. “You _lo-ove_ her,” she sang. “You wanna _marry_ her.”

“I will get you _ice cream_ if you shut up,” said Ripper.

Immediately, Dawn perked up. “How much?”

* * *

 

Ripper took Dawn down to the grocery store a few blocks away. She had tiny little-kid legs, so halfway down the block, he let her hop onto his back and walked them both the rest of the way. Well—almost the rest of the way, because they ran into Xander and Willow about a block from the grocery store.

“Ripper!” said Xander. “And Dawn!” He turned to Willow. “You’re seeing this too, right?”

“Piss off,” said Ripper. “I’m taking Dawn to go get ice cream.”

“Jenny said to tell you to be careful with that wrist,” said Willow anxiously, directing a worried glance at the bandaged wrist in question.

“Tell Janna I’m more grown-up than she is and I should be bossing _her_ around,” said Ripper, shifting a giggling Dawn on his back. “You two want ice cream? I have extra money, I can buy you something before Dawn and I head back—”

 _“Yes,”_ said Xander immediately. “One hundred _percent_ yes.”

“Ripper,  _I_ want ice cream!” Dawn objected.

“Did you not hear the _extra money_ bit?” Ripper continued to walk, now with Xander and Willow tagging along. “What flavor?”

“Rocky road,” said Xander.

“Mint chocolate chip,” said Willow.

“Star Wars bubblegum rainbow sherbet swirl,” said Dawn.

“You had better be making that up, pint-size,” said Ripper, “because that sounds _viscerally_ horrifying.”

Dawn giggled, then said, “Cookie dough.”

“ _Thank_ you.” They’d just about reached the grocery store by this point, so Ripper bent down to let Dawn hop off his back. She ran ahead into the store, and Xander sprinted after her with a laugh.

Willow, however, remained at his side. “She likes you,” she said, grinning a little.

“What—really?” said Ripper, frowning. “I thought all little kids just talk a bunch.”

“Not Dawn,” said Willow, grin widening. “She gets all sullen and glare-y around her other sitters if they’re not Buffy or her mom. It’s why they have so much trouble finding anybody.” She bumped her shoulder against Ripper’s. “She’s got good taste, Ripper,” she added. “You’re _really_ cool.”

Startled into a smile, Ripper ducked his head, hurrying in after Dawn and Xander. They had ice cream to buy.

* * *

 

“Truth,” said Dawn, taking a scoop from the tub of ice cream. They had arrived back at Buffy’s house, Dawn with a giant tub of cookie dough ice cream, and they were doing their best to share. Ripper, however, hadn’t accounted for the tiniest Summers being pretty much a bottomless pit; it was all he could do to get a scoop in before she’d taken a good chunk off the top.

“You can’t pick truth _every time—_ ” Ripper objected.

“A dare means I have to get up off this couch and I _so_ don’t wanna do that,” said Dawn stubbornly. “ _Truth,_ Ripper.”

Ripper tried to think of a question that was appropriately soul-baring enough to ask a nine-year-old, couldn’t come up with anything all that great, and said, “What kind of music d’you listen to?”

Dawn blinked. “Really?” she said. _“That’s_ your truth question?”

“Cardinal rule of this game is that you _have_ to answer,” Ripper reminded her. “Unless you want a dare—?”

“I don’t, I’m just saying it’s a _boring question,”_ said Dawn. “I like One Direction and sometimes I steal Buffy’s Taylor Swift albums and she gets really mad.”

“One…Direction?” said Ripper, with the foreboding sensation of someone who had opened a door he might never be able to close.

Dawn  _beamed._ “Truth or dare?” she said.

 _“Dare,”_ said Ripper.

“See,  _you_ always pick dare!” said Dawn. She considered, then said, “I dare you to sit through an _entire_ One Direction music video with me. No—as many One Direction videos as it takes for us to finish half of this ice cream.”

“ _Dawn—_ ”

“You said that the _cardinal rule_ of this game is that you _have_ to!”

Ripper made a very upset noise. “You,” he said, “create just as much nightmarish trouble as your sister. Set up the video.”

Giggling, Dawn pulled herself up the couch, running up the stairs to get whatever it was she’d be playing the video on. Ripper reclined back into the couch, grinning a little, and took a scoop of ice cream for himself.

* * *

 

“How was she?”

“Hmm?” Ripper pulled himself up from the couch, rubbing his face.

“Well,” said Ms. Summers, smiling a little and looking at a point past Ripper, “I guess that answers my question.”

Ripper blinked sleepily, turning to look at what had caught Ms. Summers’s attention, then winced: Dawn was asleep on the other side of the couch, cuddled under the blanket Ripper had thrown over her an hour or two ago. He’d _meant_ to wake her up before nine-thirty, really he had, but it had been warm and nice in Buffy’s house and he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open—

“She must really like you,” said Ms. Summers approvingly. “Usually she just stays up in her room and won’t talk to the sitters at all.”

“We, uh,” Ripper did his best not to look at the half-melted, half-empty tub of ice cream on the coffee table, “stayed up talking about things. You’ve got a cool kid.”

“ _You_ seem like a cool kid,” countered Ms. Summers, sitting down on the couch next to him and rummaging in her wallet.

“Oh, no—” Ripper glanced over at Dawn. It felt weird to be getting paid for doing something that hadn’t really felt like _work._ “First gig’s free of charge, isn’t it?” he said, shrugging a little and flipping his hair back like he babysat kids all the time. He could absolutely make babysitting look cool.

“Nice try,” said Ms. Summers, and pressed the money into his hand. “I hope you’ll come around for dinner sometime soon—really, any time at all. Buffy says you’re living alone?”

“It’s no big deal,” said Ripper uneasily.

“I’d agree if this were England,” said Ms. Summers, “But I think I’d like you to know that you’ve got family here.” She smiled—again, that soft, gentle smile that made Ripper feel almost _jealous_ of Buffy and Dawn, getting to have a mum like this every day—and Ripper realized that she was still holding his hand the exact second that she let go. “Thank you very much for doing this, Ripper,” she said. “If Dawn ever needs watching—”

“I’ll be there,” Ripper agreed, and meant it.


End file.
